If you can see at least two hands next to you can play better than perfect basic stragedy using the information of the dead cards next to you. "Dead cards are cards you can not draw." My question is how good of rules do you need to be able to have an advatage off the first deal and what are they? What are the worst rules that you could have when being able to use other peoples cards to help make your decision and still get an advatage off the first deal?

Even in a single deck game, I don't think seeing four dead cards can be worth more than 0.04% or 0.05% off the top. That would mean you'd need a single deck, S17, DOA, 3:2 game to have an edge off the top.

As a trip down memory lane for old timers, I seem to recall that back in the mid '70's, Caesar's had a $25 min. single deck game with S17, DOA, DAS, RSA and LS. The basic strategy EV was +0.20%.

Most of our advantage comes from the sizing of our bets vs advantage/disadvantage. Bet more when we have an edge, bet less or not at all when the house has the edge. Since you must make your bet before seeing these few cards, we are speaking about fractions of fractions of cents in most instances.Changing our play according to the count or in this case according to a few cards we see on the felt, accounts for only a small portion of edge. In this case, the single deck advantage that Fred says you might get is very small and it gets completely insignificant when you move to a shoe game.

I thought that a new feature on the blackjack caculator was interesting. It shows to results for the house edge one is realistic basic stragedy the kind that you can get from a stragedy charts and the other was optimal stragedy that was stragedy based on the cards you where holding say you are playing hands 10-6 against a 10 you should hit but on the next shuffle up you get 4-4-2-5-A against a 10 your best play is to stay that is what is meant by using optimal stragedy. At the place where the odds are most favorable to the player at Boomtown single deck game of the first deal of the deck the house advantage is .265% relastic results but the optimal stragedy disadvantage is .152% a whole .113% difference and that was just using the information in your own hand. The optimal results don't include the consideration of another persons hand. I got these results of www.wizardofodds.com I think you should check out the sight if you are gambler that cares about math if you don't than it is a waste of your time.

If you can see at least two hands next to you can play better than perfect basic stragedy using the information of the dead cards next to you. "Dead cards are cards you can not draw." My question is how good of rules do you need to be able to have an advatage off the first deal and what are they? What are the worst rules that you could have when being able to use other peoples cards to help make your decision and still get an advatage off the first deal?

It doesn't help nearly enough to be significant since you normally start off a new shoe with a small bet unless you are using a cover play to avoid suspicion. In a shoe game, your advantage comes from betting properly. playing decisions are far less important. By the time you see the cards for the players to your right, all you can do is modify your play, but not your bet.

There's nothing new here at all, and any counter uses the true count / running count as it exists immediately before any playing decision. Including seeing his third card and adjusting the count to decide whether to take 4th card or not.

A place that offers good rules on single deck only has a .2% house advantage of the first deal if you are playing by your self and use optimal stragedy but getting to see other players cards in my opinion and playing accordingly could take that down to zero or put the odds in your favor ever so slightly.

Playing decisions are way more important than how you bet your money even if you are able to bet with the count if you make too many mistakes in your playing decisions I gurantee that you will lose. Especially if you make the big mistakes that cost you a lot of expected value like failing to hit a 16 against a 7.

A place that offers good rules on single deck only has a .2% house advantage of the first deal if you are playing by your self and use optimal stragedy but getting to see other players cards in my opinion and playing accordingly could take that down to zero or put the odds in your favor ever so slightly.

Playing decisions are way more important than how you bet your money even if you are able to bet with the count if you make too many mistakes in your playing decisions I gurantee that you will lose. Especially if you make the big mistakes that cost you a lot of expected value like failing to hit a 16 against a 7.

LTCIn this area we have been talking to people who claim to be cardcounters. That means we take for granted that they know basic strategy for the game they are playing, size their bets by the count and do make playing decisions that are deviations from basic strategy when the count dictates that those changes should be made.If this is what we are doing then proper betting is much more important than deviations. The person would not be staying on his 16 vs 7, unless he had hit an index number where that is the proper play.

A cardcounter does have an edge against the house using no indices at all. He could just play basic strategy and size his bets by the count and still have an edge. The indices increase that edge.

A cardcounter does not have an edge against the house if he flat bets but uses many indices according to the count. That is if he is playing all. You can wong in on a favorable count, flat bet, use or not use indices and have an edge.

Thus you can win with proper spread and no indices playing all, and you can not win with no spread and many indices playing all.

A place that offers good rules on single deck only has a .2% house advantage of the first deal if you are playing by your self and use optimal stragedy but getting to see other players cards in my opinion and playing accordingly could take that down to zero or put the odds in your favor ever so slightly.

Playing decisions are way more important than how you bet your money even if you are able to bet with the count if you make too many mistakes in your playing decisions I gurantee that you will lose. Especially if you make the big mistakes that cost you a lot of expected value like failing to hit a 16 against a 7.

That's simply wrong. Playing decisions are meaningless if you have the _wrong_ bet on the table. Any good simulator will show this quickly and clearly. If you want I can run a sim that flat-bets in a single-deck game but plays perfect index decisions. It is difficult to win anything even at single-deck without proper betting. And with two or more decks, forget about it.

I was thinking that if you could look at two other players cards of the top of a 1 deck game how much could you gain by learning when to properly insure your hand? Say it is the top of a 1 deck game and you look at your cards and at 2 players next to so you have seen a total of 7 cards and none of which where 10 value cards you would have an edge on the insurance bet this applies only to single deck games. How much do you think that proper insurance will effect your overall expected value on the game?

I was thinking that if you could look at two other players cards of the top of a 1 deck game how much could you gain by learning when to properly insure your hand? Say it is the top of a 1 deck game and you look at your cards and at 2 players next to so you have seen a total of 7 cards and none of which where 10 value cards you would have an edge on the insurance bet this applies only to single deck games. How much do you think that proper insurance will effect your overall expected value on the game?

Somehow we are not talking the same thing. When I play, I keep up with the running count as _every_ card is played. When the dealer flips over an Ace and asks for insurance, I use the running count to compute the true count and make my insurance decision _right then_ based on all the cards dealt to this point that I have seen. So I don't quite follow your question, since any card counter I know would be using the previous rounds plus the exposed cards in this round to make his insurance decision. Since you only take insurance when there is a positive edge for doing so, it adds to your advantage certainly. But I don't know of anyone that would make the insurance decision prior to the dealer dealing cards, we'd all count the cards that are visible (including peeking at our neighbors in a hand-held game, when possible).

You are playing with 3 other players who graciously decided to show you their whole cards playing at a good game where you have a .26% disadvantage of the top using nothing more than basic stragedy seeing 7 other cards plus your own cards for a total of 9 seen cards will make for a really juicy insurance bet now and then I believe that it could wipe out your basic stragedy disadvantage and maybe even then some!

You are playing with 3 other players who graciously decided to show you their whole cards playing at a good game where you have a .26% disadvantage of the top using nothing more than basic stragedy seeing 7 other cards plus your own cards for a total of 9 seen cards will make for a really juicy insurance bet now and then I believe that it could wipe out your basic stragedy disadvantage and maybe even then some!

In a shoe game, knowing 9 cards (assuming you can see your own cards, + the other three players, plus the dealer's Ace up, that isn't enough information to help you make a decent insurance decision. 9 cards off the top are not enough to get you to the insurance index point, and that is just one round out of N.

If you are talking single-deck, then yes, seeing 9 cards is enough to take the true count to +9 or a little better depending on how you do remaining deck estimation. So seeing 9 cards could easily get you to your Insurance departure point.

I was wondering in a good single deck game where you can double on any first two cards and blackjacks pay 3 to 2 what your starting advantage is when you take into account using perfect insurance and index plays that are beyond basic stragedy to make your decision are. The starting disadvantage is .25% but that does not take into account index plays or using insurance to your advantage! Lets say you are dealt a 12 vs a dealer 4 and you see that both players next too you are holding two card twenty's with all tens! You deciced to go against basic stragedy but it is the correct index play and deciced to hit your hand you catch a 9 and stand and that particular hand is one that you would of lost had you not used the index plays!

I was wondering in a good single deck game where you can double on any first two cards and blackjacks pay 3 to 2 what your starting advantage is when you take into account using perfect insurance and index plays that are beyond basic stragedy to make your decision are. The starting disadvantage is .25% but that does not take into account index plays or using insurance to your advantage! Lets say you are dealt a 12 vs a dealer 4 and you see that both players next too you are holding two card twenty's with all tens! You deciced to go against basic stragedy but it is the correct index play and deciced to hit your hand you catch a 9 and stand and that particular hand is one that you would of lost had you not used the index plays!

Beware of inverse reasoning. Your "starting advantage" is exactly whatever the house edge is before the first card is dealt. But your EV is whatever your expected profit is for that game, knowing that over time there will be + counts where you have an advantage and bet big, and - counts where you have a disadvantage and bet small or wong out...

Most any 21 game can be played to a positive expectation, by counting cards and betting/playing properly...